What is toy theatre?
Whilst most people would associate the term of ‘toy theatre’ to actual toys (ie. children’s playthings), it doesn’t at all mean that.
Toy theatre is actually more like model making (set design models or doll houses) and paper dolls. Americans would most likely call them ‘dioramas’ (everyone else in the world can try to recall The Simpsons episode where Lisa made a diorama of The Telltale Heart, with the beating heart under the floorboards). From what little I know about dioramas though, they are designed to be static, not puppetry.
The simplest and best description of toy theatre is that it consists of a miniature version of a theatre: a box, cut out with a proscenium arch, a hole at the top and sides for access, and a set up that allows for rigging of miniature backdrops, sets and other pieces. The puppets, which are normally paper cut outs, can be worked on rods or strings, below or above, or from the sides.
An example of toy theatre might be my miniature Lego city for my play in ‘07 (pictured in the title of this post; click on the image for a larger view). Although it’s certainly not a traditional toy theatre, it does share similar aspects: moving parts, contained within a box, is miniaturised… etc.
There are quite complicated toy theatres, where you can create a quite literal mini theatre, as discussed in this book: Build your own model theatre; illustrated by Diana Tull by Anthony Parker [review to be added], or you can be extremely simple and use a print-out foldable pattern. Larger toy theatres can be used to great effect in small theatrical venues, but generally these types of puppets are too small for the average audience to see (my Lego city is 80cm wide and 50cm tall - we had a 50 seat venue and people were struggling to see the puppetry from the back three rows).
Toy theatre started in Europe in the early 1800s, and were mainly for entertainment at home; TV before TV was invented really. Because it’s simple to make and use, toy theatre is great puppetry for and by children. It’s almost one step up from finger puppets, and you can create a lot of great scenes from a few basic materials.
Here’s the tutorial on making your own toy theatre! (Sorry, we’re not making the Lego city above. You can read most of the building process at the link above. You can however make something much much simpler, using recycled materials: it’s also kid friendly.) More free patterns can be found here. [Links to be added]
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@Meg, thanks for your interest in my site. As you can probably tell, there's a lot of content missing, most of which is being migrated from another website.
... School of Puppetry on What are sock puppets?The old tutorial doesn't show how to make the sock puppet as pictured on the 'what are sock puppets' page; however I am currently reworking a lot of the content, improving it and such, and because of this I will be adding a video in the future of how to make this particular design. Suffice to say if you go to Safeway (oops, Woolworths now) and look at their socks, you will find a selection of non-slip socks with a plastic sole. That's what I used in the picture.
I am currently migrating about four years' worth of tutorials and information, so your patience is much appreciated. If you'd like to be notified when the new tutorial appears, please subscribe:
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/PuppetsInMelbourne
As for making one eat... that's a bit tricky. There's no reason you couldn't, by cutting a hole in the mouth. (Cookie Monster is made the same way; there's a hole in the mouth, and the puppeteer simply lets the cookies fall through the mouth into the puppet body. Since the body is just a tube of foam, the cookies fall out at the bottom where the puppeteer's arm enters) However, sock puppets are generally snug fitting, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for the 'fly' to go anywhere. It's not impossible, but it may be that a sock puppet isn't the best type of puppet for this particular trick. I recommend heading to http://www.puppetsandstuff.com. This is a forum for puppet makers, all of whom are extremely willing to help people figure out how to make something. I'm sure you'll get plenty of suggestions of how to do an 'eating' puppet from that site.
Anyway, I hope all of that helps, and please keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming tutorial.